The Clearance of the Highland
GlensFrom the Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness

After forty years absence
from this part of the country I shall state the opinions that I now
entertain of matters in the Highlands. I shall as briefly as possible
place before you the impressions on my mind with regard to the most
prominent changes in the Highlands during this long interval.

In the first place I feel
bound to express my sincere pleasure at the sight of the noble efforts
of the Gaelic Society of Inverness to rescue our ancient and venerable
language from decay and dissolution. Professor Geddes of Aberdeen says
that “it can boast a pedigree better far than that spoken in the highest
places in the land, and can claim the start of English on the soil of
Britain by ten centuries, and that in a literary form.” Professor
Morley, of London, states that “a man cannot be a thorough English
scholar without a knowledge of Celtic”; and Professor Allison, of
Glasgow, said “that the man who speaks two languages is equal to two
men, and advances in usefulness at the same ratio for every language he
speaks.” It augurs well for the development and success of your Society
that the Provost, the Chief Magistrates, and Town Councillors of
Inverness have opened the Town Hall of the largest county in Scotland
for your deliberations. All thanks to them for it, and for their
friendly appearance among us at our principal meetings.

It is a source of
pleasure for me to state without favour or prejudice that this town of
Inverness has improved in every imaginable respect during the forty
years alluded to. Jn sanitary respects the town is unquestionably 500
per cent, better than it was in my early recollection. In well-designed
and stately houses there are portions of Inverness that will compare
favourably with, if not surpass, equal lengths of London streets and
London shops. Large and spacious hotels with every accommodation,
comfort and civility; an abundant meat, vegetable, and fish market;
suburban villas, and every fanciful architecture. Add to this the daily
arrival and departure of railway trains to and from every part of the
Kingdom, as well as the steamboats plying both by salt and fresh water.
Old nature seems to have designed the town and environs of Inverness as
the Madeira of Scotland, but it remained for the scientific acumen of
our friend Mr Murdoch to demonstrate the salubrity of the town; and it
is satisfactory to note that his labours on this score stand unanswered
and unchallenged. My house being on a rising ground above the town
where, according to tradition, the Cross or centre of Old Inverness
stood, I can see from my windows for many miles, and it is most
gratifying to see the surrounding country studded with small but
substantial stone and slated houses and offices to correspond with the
moderate size of the farms on which they are built. All honour to the
proprietors of these estates. They belong principally to the Baillies of
Doeh-four, Leys, and Redeastle.

Let us now leave the
immediate neighbourhood of Inverness and wend our way North, South, East
or West, and what do we see on all sides? Large farms infested with game
and burrowed like honey-eomb by rabbits. If we extend our walk to the
Glens, we find them thoroughly cleared—the native population sent to the
four quaiters of the globe, wild beasts, wild birds, and game of every
description in quiet possession and feeding among the crumbled walls of
houses where we have seen happy families of stalwart Highlanders reared
and educated! This is no exaggeration. During the last twelve monthsI
travelled through the counties of Inverness, Ross, Cromarty, Sutherland,
Moray, Banff, Perth and Argyle ; and I can bear testimony to the general
depression and desolation caused throughout the Highlands, I maintain,
by the operation of the iniquitous Class Laws called Came Laws. They are
like the Upas Tree, withering all within their unhallowed atmosphere,
sending the bone and sinew of the Highlands to foreign lands. They turn
large tracts of country into cheerless and inhospitable deserts. They
sever the proverbial and ancient bond of union and attachment between
chief and clansman. The chief is distrusted frequently for his acts,
communicated through his factor, and the clansman is thereby
disheartened. Thus another town-land or perhaps a whole Glen is laid
waste and placed at the disposal of wild beasts. The work of destruction
and depopulation in the Highlands has gone on so regularly for nearly a
hundred years, and especially during the last fifty years, that the few
farmers left on the Lowlands have a difficulty in finding servants and
labourers to work their farms. Every part of the Highlands through which
I have passed seemed to be much in the same way —the surface of the
land, as it were, in sombre mourning covered with heather lamenting the
absence of the strong arm that used to till and ought to reclaim it, to
enable it to fulfil the purposes for which land was given to man, viz.,
to make it support the greatest possible number of human beings in the
greatest possible degree of comfort and happiness. The law that enables
one man to say to another; “I will not cultivate one acre, and I will
not allow you to do so,” is most unnatural and most iniquitous in its
results.

It is most satisfactory
to know, I think, that the British Government has ignored freedom of
contract between landlord and tenant in Ireland by the Ulster Tenant
Bight and the Irish Land Bill of 1870. Since the Bill of 1870 was passed
into law the landlord in Ireland is not the judge between his tenants
and himself. It is the Chairman of Quarter Sessions, a Government
Officer, independent of both landlord and tenant, who must decide
whether t^e rent demanded is excessive or not. There may be legal
quibbles still in the way of amicable settlements between landlord and
tenant in Ireland; but the Land Bill of 1870 (which I read over and over
again) seems to me to bear this construction. It is not long since a
tenant farmer got £700 damages from his landlord in Ireland for raising
his rent and thereby compelling him to leave the farm. At this moment
English good sense stands like a bulwark between the landlord and
cultivator of the soil in Ireland. Landlords, factors, and leases are no
longer supreme in Ireland. The Chairman of Quarter Sessions is
arbitrator from this time forward. England abolishes landlordism in
Ireland by advancing money through the Board of Works to every honest
tenant who has ambition to purchase his firm in fee simple from his
landlord. The repurchase system has made rapid progress in some of the
Continental kingdoms of Europe. Notably in Prussia. From the day that
Napolean I. crossed the Rhine the Government of Prussia looked with
sorrow and astonishment at the number of young Germans who flocked
around Napoleon’s standard. They soon discovered that these men were
lining from landlord tyranny. Having discovered the cause, they applied
the remedy; they valued every farm on large estates throughout Prussia;
enacted laws to-enable tenants in possession to purchase their farms,
and on certain conditions advanced money to enable the farmer to pay for
his land. In Austria they have a re-purchase system also.

They have a land system
of their own in France since 1789, one feature of which (I think) is,
that no man can derive more than ,£5000 per annum from land in France.
Large landed estates have often been the cause o f revolutions and
bloodshed.

Macaulay, in his review
of Mitford’s History of Greece, justly says—“In Rome the oligarchy was
too powerful to be subverted by force, and neither the tribunes nor the
popular assemblies, though constitutionally omnipotent, could maintain a
successful contest against men who possessed the whole property of the
State. Hence the necessity for measures tending to unsettle the whole
frame of Society and to take away every motive of industry — the
abolition of debts and the agrarian laws — propositions absurdly
condemned by men who do not consider the circumstances from which they
spring. They were the desperate remedies of a desperate disease. In
Greece the oligarchical interest was not in general so deeply rooted as
in Rome. The multitude, there/ore, redressed by force grievances which
at Rome were commonly attacked under the form of the Constitution. They
drove out or massacred the rich and divided their property.” This is
ancient history, but the French Revolution of 1789 is modern. Thus we
see in ancient and modern history, that the land was the bone of
contention. The first grand error of Britons was selling what did not
belong to us. That which is on the land belongs to man, because he made
it, or helped to rear it, but the land itself, belongs to no man, and no
generation of men because they did not make it. The law of England,
interpreted by the ablest, expressly declares that man can only hold an
estate in land. The modern theory of a general commerce in land was
unknown in England, till the demise of the Stuart dynasty. More than one
half of some English counties was held in common. On the lowest
computation, says a report of the Commons Preservation Society,
“5,000,000 acres of common land have been enclosed since the reign of
Queen Anne.” It is not easy in the various and conflicting statements
set forth occasionally to estimate the amount of land still unenclosed
and subject to common rights in England and Wales. I have seen it put as
low as 2,600,000 acres. On the other hand it is stated that so recently
as the reign of George III., eight million acres of commonage still
remained. There was no pauperism under such a system. Milk, butter,
cheese, bacon, poultry and some sheep were within the reach of all.
There was no absolute ownership of land either by great or small, but
there was fixity of tenure during good behaviour to all.

The King or Queen, as
representing the public, exercised strict, just, and impartial control.
We are no more than trustees for our successors. But we have divested
ourselves of the power of compelling any man to cultivate an acre. Yet
history tells us that this want of cultivation has on several occasions
been very nearly the downfall of England.

In the face of all former
experience, it is melancholy to see our landed proprietors through the
Highlands encouraging a system among us that would not be tolerated in
England. The noblemen and capitalists who come among us from England to
elbow out of house and home our native population know too well that it
would be not only impolitic but most dangerous to try such experiments
on their own countrymen.

Forty years’ residence in
England convince me that the free, brave, independent, and
justice-loving people of England would not tolerate or brook oppression
from any man or from any class of men. Instance—how quickly the voice
and press of England brought the Earl of Darnley to his knees when he
attempted to dispossess one of his tenants near Gravesend some three or
four years ago. It may be urged that the Dukes and nobles, capitalists
and sportsmen who come among the ruins of farms and villages in the
North had no hand in clearing the people out of the way of sheep, deer,
and game. Be that as it may, they are in possession, and it was in
anticipation of such unscrupulous tenants that the people were driven
out and deprived of farms, houses and homes. In such cases as these the
strong arm of the law ought to intei-pose between enormous wealth and
honest industry.

To prevent you from
thinking that I am dealing in generalities only, just imagine that such
men as the Duke of Westminster and the Duke of Portland come from
England annually to imitate our Highland Duke of Athole and Northern
Duke of Sutherland, in increasing their stock of deer and extending the
size of the Ducal Forests. I as k what chance would the cultivator of
the soil have in the same atmosphere with the Ducal Deer ? One would
think that some, if not all, of these forests were extensive enough. Let
us hear what Thomas Graham Murray, Esq., said of the Forest of Athole
while he was under examination by a committee of the House of Commons on
the 26th July, 1872. In answer to a question, Mr Murray said, “you will
find that in Mr Scrope’s book he gives a calculation of the number of
acres. His book was written in the time of Duke John, about the year
1828 or 1829, and he makes the whole forest 135,000 acres; but of that
51.000 acres were then under deer, the rest being grouse ground. And you
will observe that it is just about the quantity that it is now. I do not
think there has been any change scarcely since that time.” Further on in
his evidence Mr Murray, speaking of the Athole Forest, says: —“It has
been a forest from time immemorial.” Mr Murray is one of the first, and
probably one of the most honourable lawyers in the kingdom. He tells us
the extent of Athole Forest, but cannot tell us how long that enormous
amount of land has been lost to the community.

Ordinary mortals might
think this extent of forest, with its “five to seven thousand deer as
estimated by Mr Sciope,” ought to satisfy the slaughtering propensities
even of a Duke. But nothing of the sort. Last year his Grace of Athole
added about 10.000 acres to his old deer forest. The lands cleared for
that purpose are Glenmore and Glenbeg, with the Glen of Cromalt and the
different smaller glens and comes that branch off from the above
mentioned glens.

Be it remembered,
however, that all this misappropriation of land is perfectly legal and
legitimate according to the present usages of Society. Nay, more, if the
four noblemen alluded to, or any other capitalists, had the means and
the chance of purchasing every inch of land (perhaps boroughs excepted)
in the Highlands of Scotland, convert it into Deer Forests and turn the
present remnant of the Highlanders out of house and home, they would be
quite within the pale of the law as interpreted by Society in modern
times. We see this principle acted on year by year, and it is against
this irresponsible power that every well-wisher of justice ought to
appeal. It appears to me that some of our Members who are learned in the
law might tell us whether the original Charters of our landed
proprietors justify them in substituting wild beasts for human beings
If the Charters empower landlords to destroy the people, by depriving
them of their birth-right, the land on which they were born, they are
quite at variance with recent legislation, in as much as the pauper has
now a life interest in the land of his birth. Yes, the proprietors and
the paupers are the only two classes of the community who have any hold
of the land of this country. There is not a man in Europe so completely
divorced from the land of his birth as the Highlander of Scotland.

Now, lest you should
imagine that I content myself with making statements and then
conveniently forgetting to prove them, let me briefly revert to the time
and circumstances which inaugurated the unhallowed system of
depopulation in Inverness-shire. As to the time, I have heard Edward
Ellice, Esq., of Glen-Cuaich, stating before a committee of the House of
Commons, on the 28th March, 1873, that “the great depopulation was in
1780 and 1790, when the Colony of Glengarry was founded in Canada, by
the number of people that were sent out from Scotland to obtain their
low lying crofts for the sheep in the winter.” Further on in his
evidence, Mr Ellice, in answer to a question, says, “Yes; I may mention
one single case that I am well acquainted with. When the depopulation
began in 1780, the people were then cleared off to make way for sheep.
They had turned out 700 to 800 fighting men in the Rebellion,
consequently the population could not have been under 5000 or 6000.” It
seems to me that Mr Ellice has Glengarry in his mind’s eye. If I am
right in this supposition, it appears to be one of the severest
reflections ever made on the depopulation of Glengarry. For every pound
sterling of the rental of the particular estate a fighting man was sent
from that estate, to support the cause of the Prince whom they believed
to be their lawful Sovereign. Imagine that Britain might be threatened
in these times either by Turk or Christian, how many fighting men would
the estate alluded to be able to send to the service of our Sovereign? I
venture to say that it could not raise 50 men. Nay, if you keep clear of
the village of Fort-Augustus, which is Lord Lovat’s property, I do not
think that even 20 men could be sent out of Glengarry with all its sheep
and deer. Not that the men are less patriotic now than they were in
1745, but for this simple reason, there are reither M‘Donnells nor any
other men in Glengarry. In justice to Mr Ellice, I must say, however,
that he seemed to me to be the most humane and most favourable to
Highlanders of all the Members of Parliament that gave evidence at the
committee alluded to. During the two days he was under examination, not
a word escaped his lips that could be construed into slight or
disrespect for Highlanders. It is quite true that Mr Ellice spoke of
them as “Crofters.” This was the lingo in which Highlanders were
generally spoken of at the Game Law Committee. But the Earl of Chatham
dignified them on a former occasion with the name of “Mountaineers.”
Speaking of them with great respect in Parliament soon after the mis-managed
affair of 1745, his Lordship said in effect:—That the Mountaineers had
well nigh changed the dynasty and upset the constitution of the Kingdom.

Now as to the
circumstances that inaugurated the depopulation alluded to. They are
simple but melancholy, and they occurred as follows :—Marsalaidh
Bhinncach, the mother of the last popular “Glengarry,” had the
management of the whole properties of Cnoideart and Glengarry, while her
son was a minor. The fascinating demon of old unfolded its golden coils
before her avaricious mind ; and in an evil hour she surrendered the
birthright of her husband’s clansmen to his crafty wiles. To begin with,
she gave Glen Cuaich to one unscrupulous south country shepherd, and
thereby deprived over 500 persons of houses and home. This was the
beginning only of a series of misfortunes which laid the foundations of
complications and embarrassments that ended in the sale of the whole of
the Glengarry estates. I forbear to mention the maiden name of this
woman on account of the esteem in which her noble chief is held. It is
said that he is by far the best landlord in the Highlands. However, The
Chisholm of Strathglasa married her eldest daughter Eliza in 1795.

The Chisholm was rather
delicate and often in bad health, and this threw the management of the
estate into the hands of his wife. Hence the cause of the great
clearance of Strathglass in 1801. The evicted people from that strath
crossed the Atlantic and settled principally in Nova Scotia and Cape
Breton Island. They gave the names of some Strathglass farms to their
freehold lands in their adopted country. In the Island there is even the
county ot Inverness.

In 1810 an heir was born
for The Chisholm. He succeeded to the most of the estates on the death
of his father in 1817. I say the most, because a portion of the land was
still in the hands of his uncle’s widow. It will be necessary here to
explain this reserve on entailed land :—.

Alexander, the eldest
surviving son of the The Chisholm who entailed the estates in 1777,
married Elizabeth, daughter of Dr Wilson of Edinburgh. He died on the
17th February, 1793, aged forty-four years, and left an only child,
Mary, who married James Gooden, Esq., merchant, of London. The estates
reverted to his half-brother William, who died in 1817,as stated above.
The widow alluded to was Dr Wilson’s daughter. Alexander The Chisholm,
her husband, made a fair settlement in case of widowhood. He left for
her, the option of a certain sum of money annually or the rental
accruing from a number of townlands or joint farms. Through the advice
of her only child Alary, Mrs Chisholm made choice of the townlands and
kept them intact, and kept the tenantry on these farms in easy
circumstances until the day of her death, which took place on the 23rd
January, 1826, and then the whole of The Chisholm’s estates reverted to
the young heir of Strathglass.

By and bye, I will tell
you how the tenantry were treated by the young Chief and his advisers.
But I feel bound to tell you first, that repeated efforts were made by
some of those who were acting for the Chief to get hold of the land
still in possession of the widow. However, the great good sense of this
noble- minded Edinburgh lady, and the sincere attachment of her
daughter, Mrs Gooden, to her father’s tenantry stood firm against all
the advances made to deprive her of the faithful Highland tenantry
entrusted to her care.

For the long space of
thirty-three years she kept her tenantry intact, never turned one of
them out of a farm, nor did she ever deprive any man of an acre of land.
As The Chisholm, her husband, left them at the time of his death in
1793, so they were left by his beloved widow at the time of her death in
1826. This excellent lady was well known and distinguished in the
Highlands by the endearing term of “A Bhantigheama-Bhan”—the English
equivalent of which is “the fair lady.”

When Mary (afterwards Mrs
Gooden) was a young lassie in her teens, four south countrymen
(Gillespie of Glen Cuaich, I think, was one of the number) came to see
The Chisholm and passed the night with him at Comar, where the Chief was
staying at that time. In the course of the evening it transpired that
the Southerns wanted the most and best portions of Strathglass as sheep
walks. In short, the object of their mission was to treat the Chisholms
of Strathglass as the Macdonnells of Glengarry were treated a few years
before that time.

Mary listened for a time
quietly to their proposals; at last she mildly put her veto on the whole
transaction. She was ordered off to her room. But, with tears in her
eyes, Mary found her way to the kitchen, and called all the servants
around her and explained to them the cause of her grief.

Never was Crann-Tara sent
through any district with more rapidity than this unwelcome news spread
through the length and breadth of Strathglass. Early next morning there
were about a thousand men, including young and old, assembled on the
ground at Comar House. They demanded an interview with The Chisholm. He
came out among them and discussed the impropriety of alarming liis
guests. Bat the Chief was told that the guests were infinitely worse
than the freebooters who came on a former occasion with sword in hand to
rob his forefathers of their patrimony, etc. [This was an allusion to a
sanguinary battle fought on the plain of Aridh-dhuiean many years before
that time between Clann-’ic-an-Lonathaicli, who wanted to take
possession, and the Chisholms, who succeeded in keeping possession of
Strathglass to this day.] The guests were at first anxiously listening,
at the drawing-room windows, to the arguments between the Chief and his
clansmen; but they soon got quietly down stairs and made the best of
their way, (I think through the back door and garden) to the stable
where they mounted their horses, galloped off helter-skelter, followed
by the shouts and derision of the assembled tenantry, across the river
Glass, spurring their horses and never looking behind until they reached
the ridge of Maoil Bhiudhe, a hill between Strathglass and Corriemony.
Imagine their chagrin on turning round and seeing a procession being
formed at Comar —pipers playing, and The Chisholm being carried to
Invercannich House on the brawny shoulders of his tenantry.

Instead of this being
cause of sorrow, it was the happiest day that ever dawned, on
Strathglass; Chief and Clansmen expressing mutual confidence in each
other, and renewing every manner of ancient and modem bond of fealty
ever entered into by their forebears. All this extraordinary episode in
the history of Strathglass I heard related over and over again by some
of the men who took their part in chasing the Southrons out of that
district.

About thirty years ago, I
reminded Mrs Gooden, in London, of what was said of her in the North, in
connection with the hasty exit of the would-be shepherds, every word of
which I found to be substantially correct, and Mrs Gooden then
added:—“When my father died in 1793, felt that the welfare of the
tenantry left in charge of my mother depended in a great measure on
myself. I was brought up among them, I used to be the Gaelic interpreter
between them and my mother, and they had great confidence in me.
However, it was in after years, when old age began to impair my mother’s
memory, that I had the greatest anxiety least the agents of The Chisholm
should succeed in depriving her of the tenantry. I had two objects in
view. The first was to keep the people comfortable, and the second was
to hand them over as an able class of tenantry to my first cousin, the
young Chisholm, at the demise of my mother.”

This determination was so
well arranged and so completely carried out, that when the Dowager Mrs
Chisholm, of whom I have spoken as “the fair lady," died, the tenantry
on the portion of The Chisholm’s estate she managed so long and so
successfully, were able and willing to rent every inch of the whole of
Strathglass, as I will soon prove to you. But let me first fulfil my
promise of acquainting you of the manner in which the new accession of
property with its native population were treated by the young Chief and
his advisers. For a few years the people were left in possession of
their respective farms. This, however, was in order to adjust matters
for future and more sweeping arrangements, as all the leases in
Strathglass were about to expire. To the best of my recollection it was
in the year 1830 that all the men in Strathglass were requested to meet
the young Chisholm on a certain day at the Inn at Cannich Bridge. The
call was readily complied with, the men were all there in good time, but
The Chisholm was not. After some hours of anxious waiting, sundry
surmises, and well-founded misgivings, a gig was seen at a distance
driving towards the assembled men. This was the signal for a momentary
ray of hope. But on the arrival of the vehicle it was discovered that it
contained only the “sense carrier” of the proprietor, viz., the factor,
who told the men that The Chisholm was not coming to the meeting, and
that, as factor, he had no instructions to enter on arrangements with
them. I was present, and heard the curt message delivered, and I leave
yon to imagine the bitter grief and disappointment of men who attended
that meeting with glowing hopes in the morning, but had to tell their
families and dependents in the evening that they could see no
alternative before them except the emigrant ship and choose between the
scorching prairies of Australia and the icy regions of North America.

In a very short time
after this abortive meeting, it transpired that the very best farms and
best grazing lands in Strathglass were let quite silently, without the
knowledge of the men in possession, to shepherds from other countries,
leaving about half the number of the native population without house or
home.

Let me now prove to you
how the native tenantry at that time in Strathglass were both able and
willing to rent every inch of it, if they were only allowed to retain
their farms at the rent given for them by the strangers. I will prove it
by plain incontrovertible facts. Here they are :—When the late generous
Lord Lovat heard of the ugly treatment of the tenantry alluded to, he
entered on negotiations with the late Mr George Grieve, the only sheep
farmer or flockmaster on his Lordship’s estates at Glen-Strathfarrar,
and arranged to take the sheep stock at valuation. llis Lordship sent
for the evicted tenants to Strathglaos, and planted —so to speak—every
one of them in Glen-Strathfarrar. The stock was valued for the new
tenants by Mr Donald McRae, who died some years ago at Fearnaig,
Lochalsh, and by Mr Donald McLeod, who died lately at Coulmore, Red
castle. These gentlemen were supposed to be two of the best judges in
the Highlands, and were also well known to be two of the most honourable
men anywhere. I was, along with other young men from Glencanaich, in
Glen-Strathfarrar at the time, and saw the stock valued. To the best of
my recollection, it was at Whitsunday in 1831. Well, then, at the
ensuing Martinmas every copper of the price of the stock was duly paid
to Mr Grieve by the new tenants. This is ample proof of their ability to
hold their own had they been allowed to remain in Strathglass.

Some fourteen years
afterwards, when the rage for deer forests began to assert its
unhallowod territorial demands, Lord Lovat informed these self-same
tenants that he wanted to add their farms to his deer-forest. However,
to mitigate their distress at the prospect of another clearance, his
Lordship stated that he did not wish to part with one of them, and
pointed out that he intended breaking up the large farms on the estate.
I remember seeing twelve ploughs, the property of one farmer, all at the
same time at work on the plains of Beauly. But, to his credit, and in
honour of his memory be it stated and remembered, the late Lord Lovat
made this one and almost all other farms on his estate accessible to
ordinary farmers, so that every man he brought to Glen-Strathfarrar, and
every one he removed from it, were comfortably located on other parts of
his Lordship’s estates. In short, the management on The Chisholm’s
estate left only two of the native farmers in Strathglass, the only
surviving man of whom is Alexander Chisholm, Raonbhrad. He is paying
rent as a middle-class farmer to the present Chisholm for nearly twenty
years back, and paid rent in the same farm to the preceding two
Chisholms from the time they got possession one after the other until
they died. He was also a farmer in a townland or joint-fann in
“Balanahann,” on “the fair lady’s” portion of Strathglass. So far, he
has satisfied the demands of four proprietors and seven successive
factors on the same estate. And, like myself, he is obeying the
spiritual decrees of the fifth Pope, protected by the humane laws of the
fourth Sovereign, and living under the well-meaning but absent fourth
Chief. All tlio rest of the Strathglass tenantry found a home on the
Lovat estates, where their sons and grandsons still are among the most
respectable middle-class farmers in Inverness-shire.

Glenstrathfarrar, by far
the most fertile glen alloted to forestry in the Highlands, has been
from that time and still is the free domain of foxes, eagles, and
hundreds of red deer, strictly preserved in order to gratify the
proclivities of sportsmen. I am very sorry for it, and in obedience to
the dictates of my conscience I must add, that in my humble opinion it
is a serious misappropriation of much excellent grazing and some good
arable lands. My firm belief is, that every portion of God’s earth
should be occupied by Christians and made to support the greatest
possible number of human beings in the greatest possible degree of
comfort and happiness.

As I stated, there were
only two native farmers left in Strathglass. But the only one who left
his native country of his own free accord at that time was my own dear
father. So that when the present Chisholm came home from Canada to take
possession of the estate about nineteen years ago, there were only two
of his name and kindred in possession of an inch of land in Strathglass.
At the first opening he doubled the number by restoring two more
Chisholm’s from Lord Lovat’s estate. But I am sorry to say that
restoration is a plant of slow growth in Strathglass. It is only right,
however, to state that The Chisholm generously re-established and
liberally supported one of the tenants in the farm from which he was
evicted nineteen years previously. This man’s father and grandfather
lived and died as tenants on that same farm, and his great-grandfather,
Domhnul MacUilleam, was killed on Druimossie-moor, (better but more
detestably known as Cuillodernoor.) I heard it said that this faithful
clansman was shot when carrying his mortally wounded commander, The
Chisholm’s youngest son, in his arms.

Some years ago I remember
reading, I think in the Inverness Advertiser, observations made by a
tourist or a traveller who pissed through Glencanaich, on the number of
broken houses and crumbled walls he saw in the glen. The writer
concluded from such unmistakeable signs that there must have been a
considerable number of inhabitants at one time in Glencanaich. He was
quite right in his conclusions. Even within my own recollection, there
were a number of people comfortably located in the Glen. Of the
descendants of Glencanaich men there were living in my own time, one
Bishop and fifteen Priests ; three Colonels, one Major, three Captains,
three Lieutenants and seven Ensigns. There is not one of all these
military men now alive. There are seven of the Priests alive. An elderly
man in that district assured me that Colonel Chisholm, who died some
years ago at Alexandria, in Upper Canada, was a Glencanaich man. The
last of the military men alluded to, died about a year ago, and a Priest
was since ordained. This will account for the discrepancy between this
statement and that of “Fear Monaidh” in “ The Gael” of August, 1875,
page 235. Such were the men mostly reared, and who had the rudiments of
their education, either in this Glen or in Strathglass. And now there
are eight shepherds, seven gamekeepers, and one farmer only, in
Glencanaich. Pray forgive me if you think I have said too much about the
depopulation of Strathglass. You have repeatedly expressed a wish to
hear how the people were cleared out of that district. In obedience to
that wish I have given you a mere outline, intentionally passing over
the recent clearances on the estate of Giusachan, because they are well
known to all who interest themselves about Highlanders. The future
historian may find an account of the doings at that time in Giusachan
recorded as “Improvements” in the columns of the Inverness Courier. He
may find them also closely criticised and openly censuied in the
Inverness Advertiser; and they occupied the time and attention of a
Committee of the House of Commons for a portion of three days.

It was not with any
degree of pleasure that I approached the subject, and I will leave it
for the present. But before doing so I may tell you there is not a human
being in Strathglass of the descendants of those who were instrumental
in driving the people out of it. I believe the same may be said of
Glengarry, and I heard it stated lately by a man who knows Sutherland
and the Reay country well, that there are only two families living in
those countries who had any hand in or on whose behalf the infamous
clearances of 1806 were commenced. It need scarcely be stated here that
the wholesale clearances alluded to were inaugurated under the cruel
auspices of Elizabeth the sixteenth Countess of Sutherland, and now it
appears that the whole race of the Crowbar Brigade, their progeny and
abettors, are (by some mysterious agency) fast gliding away from the
country they have so ruthlessly desolated.

Glengarry was cleared by
“Marsali Bhinnach,” Strathglass was cleared by her daughter Eliza, and
Sutherland was cleared by Elizabeth the sixteenth Countess of
Sutherland. These three ladies may have been good wives and good
mothers; I have nothing to say against their private character. But
their public acts in land clearances ought to stand forth as landmarks
to be avoided by the present landed proprietors and by all future owners
and administrators of land.

In conclusion, let me
repeat what I have said, that it is totally beyond my comprehension how
our forefathers could have divested themselves of every species of
control and power over the land of these countries. I have seen it
stated in an Edinburgh paper that nineteen men own half the land in
Scotland.

Be that as it may, we
know that less than nineteen miserable landed proprietors brought the
present desolation on the Glens of the Highlands. And now the simple but
important question is —Will you do all in your power to alter this state
of things ? Will you collectively and individually endeavour to leave
the tenure of land in the Highlands in a better state than you found it?
My own humble opinion is, that you ought to petition Parliament
forthwith, praying that they may be pleased to interpose between
misapplied capital and the cultivators of the land in the Highlands. It
would perhaps be presumption on my part to propose or even to suggest
any of the terms which ought to be employed in your petition. But I
think you might with good grace remind the present Government of what
the late Gladstone Government did for the cultivators of the soil in
Ireland. Let your petition be legally conceived, wisely worded,
numerously signed, or signed, by your Chairman only on behalf of the
meeting, respectfully presented and patiently discussed in the
Parliament of Great Britain and Ireland. In one word, let all your
proceedings be strictly within the pale of the ten commandments, and, by
the help of Him who made them, you will be sure and certain of success.

This comment system requires
you to be logged in through either a Disqus account or an
account you already have with Google, Twitter, Facebook or
Yahoo. In the event you don't have an account with any of these
companies then you can create an account with Disqus. All
comments are moderated so they won't display until the moderator
has approved your comment.